Sacrificial Ground: Frank Clemons, Book 1

The young girl lies in a ditch without a scratch on her - a white high school student stretched out dead in the black part of Atlanta. She was a rich girl from a cold family, too genteel for the neighborhood where she died, and only the baby in her belly suggests how she might have gotten there. For Detective Frank Clemons, the scene is far too familiar. Too close to how it was when he found his own daughter, dead in the woods by her own hand, her youthful beauty cruelly ravaged by depression. To hang on to sanity, he must do everything he can to find justice for the dead.

An Obvious Fact

In the midst of the largest motorcycle rally in the world, a young biker is run off the road and ends up in critical condition. When Sheriff Walt Longmire and his good friend, Henry Standing Bear, are called to Hulett, Wyoming - the nearest town to America's first national monument, Devils Tower - to investigate, things start getting complicated.

Red Leaves

In Red Leaves, Edgar Award-winning author Thomas H. Cook pens a compelling tale of suspicion and its corrosive effects on a family. When a little girl is missing on the morning after his teenaged son baby-sits for her, Eric Moore watches his world crumble as suspicion falls on his son. Although Eric hires a lawyer to prepare his son’s defense, a haunting thought slithers into his mind. What if he has been nurturing a monstrous fiend?

The Interrogation

One day in 1952, the strangled body of 10-year-old Cathy Lake is discovered in a public park. A homeless suspect, Albert Jay Smalls, is arrested and held for interrogation. Now, Officers Norman Cohen and Jack Pierce have only 24 hours to make the sullen young man talk before he's released. How far are they willing to push him to get a confession?

Downfall: A Brady Novel of Suspense

With a baby on the way, sudden deaths in the family from which to recover, a reelection campaign looming, and a daughter heading off for college, Cochise County Sheriff Joanna Brady has her hands full when a puzzling new case hits her department, demanding every resource she has at her disposal.

The Informant

FBI special agent Victoria Santos is tracking a string of gruesome murders from New York to San Francisco, Miami to Oregon. Meanwhile, Pulitzer Prize-winning Miami Tribune reporter Mike Posten receives a call from a mysterious stranger who claims his mind works so much like the killer's that he can actually predict the next attack: time, place, victim. When the predictions prove true, Mike and Victoria must join forces to find out if this eerie caller is the real psychopath.

Breakheart Hill

When a lovely high-school girl is destroyed by a blow to her head, the savage act sends the people of a small southern town reeling. For 30 years, the mystery behind the attack has festered, damaging countless lives. Now the town physician, who once loved the girl, must tell the dark story of what really happened that day.

Justice Redeemed

Two years ago, Darren Street made a name for himself as the man who rooted out corruption in the district attorney's office. Now the hotheaded young lawyer is in the public eye yet again - this time, accused of murder. Jalen Jordan retained Street for what seemed to be a minor traffic violation, but when evidence turned up linking Jordan to the death of two boys, Street wanted out of the case.

Blood Echoes: The Infamous Alday Mass Murder and Its Aftermath

It was not a clever killing. On May 5, 1973, three men escaped from a Maryland prison and disappeared. Joined by a 15-year-old brother, they surfaced in Georgia, where they were spotted joyriding in a stolen car. Within a week, the four young men were arrested on suspicion of committing one of the most horrific murders in American history. Jerry Alday and his family were eating Sunday dinner when death burst through the door of their cozy little trailer. Their six bodies are only the beginning of this gruesome story.

The Wrong Side of Goodbye: A Harry Bosch Novel, Book 21

Harry Bosch is California's newest private investigator. He doesn't advertise, he doesn't have an office, and he's picky about who he works for, but it doesn't matter. His chops from 30 years with the LAPD speak for themselves. Soon one of Southern California's biggest moguls comes calling. The reclusive billionaire has less than six months to live and a lifetime of regrets. He hires Bosch to find out whether he has an heir.

The Short Drop

A decade ago, fourteen-year-old Suzanne Lombard, the daughter of Benjamin Lombard - then a senator, now a powerful vice president running for the presidency - disappeared in the most sensational missing-person case in the nation's history. Still unsolved, the mystery remains a national obsession. For legendary hacker and marine Gibson Vaughn, the case is personal - Suzanne Lombard had been like a sister to him.

Whistling Past the Graveyard

In the summer of 1963, nine-year-old spitfire Starla Claudelle runs away from her strict grandmother's Mississippi home. Starla hasn't seen her momma since she was three - that's when Lulu left for Nashville to become a famous singer. If she can get to Nashville and find her momma, then all that she promised will come true: Lulu will be a star. Daddy will come to live in Nashville, too. And her family will be whole and perfect.

The Chatham School Affair

As lawyer Henry Griswald draws up an aging client’s will, he reflects on a series of events in 1926-1927 that shattered the peace of his boyhood community. Griswald, then a student at the school where his father was headmaster, witnessed a passion that would change him forever. At the heart of Griswald’s reverie lies a mystery only he can solve. What really happened at Black Pond—a tragedy that eventually destroyed five lives?

Best Boy: A Novel

Sent to a "therapeutic community" for autism at the age of 11, Todd Aaron, now in his '50s, is the "old fox" of Payton Living Center. A joyous man who rereads the encyclopedia compulsively, he is unnerved by the sudden arrivals of a menacing new staffer and a disruptive, brain-injured roommate. His equilibrium is further worsened by Martine, a one-eyed new resident who has romantic intentions and convinces him to go off his meds to feel "normal" again.

The Collectibles: The Collectibles Trilogy, Book 1

"Do what the other fella can't. Be what the other fella ain't. And then help the other fella." Joe Hart has never let go of his uncle's words. An orphan from the unspoiled Adirondack Mountains, Joe leaves his humble beginnings and goes on to distinguish himself, first as a navy submarine commander, then as an attorney unequaled in his field. But Joe's world crashes with an unexpected tragedy.

Sandrine's Case

Samuel Madison always wondered what Sandrine saw in him, he a meek, stuffy doctorate student and she a brilliant, beautiful bohemian with limitless talent and imagination. Yet on the surface their marriage seemed perfectly tranquil: jobs at a small liberal arts college, a precocious young daughter, a home filled with art and literature, and trips to some of the world’s most beautiful places. Then one night Sandrine is found dead in their bed from a deadly overdose of pain medication and alcohol, and Samuel is accused of poisoning her.

Mystic River

When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car drove up their street. One boy got in the car, two did not, and something terrible happened - something that ended their friendship and changed the boys forever. Twenty-five years later, Sean is a homicide detective. Jimmy is an ex-con. And Dave is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay - demons that urge him to do horrific things. When Jimmy's daughter is murdered, Sean is assigned to the case.

The Crime of Julian Wells

When the body of famed true-crime writer Julian Wells is found in a boat drifting on a Montauk pond, the question isn't how he died, but why. The death looks like an obvious suicide, but why would Wells take his own life? And was this his only crime? Wells' best friend, Philip Anders, wants to know more. His first clue is an Argentinean crime, which may have been Wells' last book idea. As Anders gathers the missing parts of Wells' life, the man he knew - or thought he knew - becomes increasingly obscured.

Flesh and Blood: A Frank Clemons Mystery, Book 2

The sleek high-rises of Park Avenue make Frank Clemons uneasy. The former Atlanta homicide detective came to New York after a sickening murder case soured him on the South, but despite the glitz and excitement of his new surroundings and the beauty of the woman he shares them with, the city makes his skin crawl. Now a private eye, he is only at ease in the city's darker corners, among the whores, gamblers, and pimps who call Eighth Avenue home. That affinity for the socially isolated is what draws him to the case of Hannah Karlsberg, an elderly seamstress who deserved a better death than she got.

Desert Heat

A cop lies dying beneath the blistering Arizona sun - a local lawman who may well have become the next sheriff of Cochise County. The police brass claim that Andy Brady was dirty, and that his shooting was a suicide attempt. Joanna Brady, his devoted wife and mother of their nine-year-old daughter, knows a cover-up when she hears one...and murder when she sees it.

The Academy: A Short Story

Quitting her job as a high school science teacher to join the Seattle Police Department was an easy decision for Tracy Crosswhite. Years earlier, what should have been one of the happiest days of her life instead became her worst nightmare when her younger sister, Sarah, disappeared. After the murder trial, while her family disintegrated, Tracy turned her heartbreak and her lingering questions into a passion for justice.

Keep Quiet

Jake Whitmore is enjoying a rare bonding moment with his 16-year-old son, Kurt, when disaster strikes. They get in a terrible car accident that threatens to derail not only Kurt’s chances at college, but his entire future. Jake makes a split-second decision that saves his son from formal punishment, but plunges them both into a world of guilt, lies, and secrecy. Just when Jake thinks he has everything under control, a malevolent outsider comes forward with the power to expose Jake’s secret.

The Cold, Cold Ground

Adrian McKinty was born in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. He studied politics and philosophy at Oxford before moving to America in the early 1990s. Living first in Harlem, he found employment as a construction worker, barman, and bookstore clerk. In 2000 he moved to Denver to become a high school English teacher and it was there that he began writing fiction.

The End of the Affair

Graham Greene’s evocative analysis of the love of self, the love of another, and the love of God is an English classic that has been translated for the stage, the screen, and even the opera house. Academy Award-winning actor Colin Firth (The King’s Speech, A Single Man) turns in an authentic and stirring performance for this distinguished audio release.

Publisher's Summary

The grave on the football field is shallow, and easy to spot from a distance. It would have been found sooner, had most of the residents in the black half of Birmingham not been downtown, marching, singing, and being arrested alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. Police detective Ben Wellman is among them when he gets the call about the fresh grave.

Under the loosely packed dirt, he finds a young black girl, her innocence taken and her life along with it. His sergeant orders Wellman to investigate, but instructs him not to try too hard. In the summer of 1963, Birmingham is tense enough without a manhunt for the killers of a black child. Wellman digs for the truth in spite of skepticism from the black community and scorn from his fellow officers. What he finds is a secret that men from both sides of town would prefer stayed buried.

“It is ideas, not best interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.” - John Maynard Keynes wrote that.

It’s what fuels Streets Afire and Birmingham police sergeant Ben Wellman through the sticky heat and hatred of Bull Connor’s 1963 summer. Oddly, my iPod spontaneously and mystically chose to play George Winston’s lyrically sweet Daughter’s and Sons as Ray Chase quietly read this complex novel’s closing feeling. It’s not skipped to a song before at a book’s end.

Did the device sense my feelings? This novel, masquerading as a clever magnetic mystery/murder/procedural tale is in fact a compelling masterpiece of mood. It murmurs a group memory… like a fading snapshot… of that grainy-TV- screen summer Americans share of a time, a year, a summer, and a moment when we awoke to an idea, not best interest, which was dangerous… for good.

I had never read anything by Thomas Cook before. He has won awards in the mystery/thriller genre, and it's easy to see why. Also, I had never heard of Ray Chase. If it is possible to be better than brilliant (in caps!), then Mr. Chase is that. The book is set in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. Racial tensions had not been this high since the Civil War. The rape and murder of a twelve-year-old black girl sets up the plot. Sgt. Ben Wellman of the BPD is assigned to the case, and he brings to it a ferocious determination. Mr. Chase's range and variety of voices, accents and nuance is absolutely astonishing. You can almost believe that there are about a dozen actors in this play. This is the time when Dr. King was building his power base, and white Southerners (not all of them, to be sure) were scared and outraged down to their very bootlaces. This was the moment when the fire department turned powerful hoses on completely peaceful marchers. It almost seems like this all happened in another country. In five years both Dr. King and Robert F. Kennedy would be assassinated. Ben feels intense heat from all directions, even (and particularly dangerously) from within his own police department. Many people from many segments of the community do not want Ben to solve the murder of Doreen Bollinger. Ben tries to get to know the girl's aunt Esther, but even such an apparently innocent contact is fraught with peril and suspicion from both whites and blacks. Ben feels pressured from all sides, and he is like a bug under a microscope, every move examined to the nth degree by everyone in town, or so he feels. The plot drives us so powerfully that I wouldn't recommend reading this just before you go to sleep, seriously. I hardly ever say that. In this case, the book can keep you reading well into the wee hours, and it can mess up your day at work. At the same time, I never wanted it to end. On a personal note, I was in Nashville during this time, at Vanderbilt. The most bizarre sight I have ever witnessed was the day after Dr. King's murder, when US Army tanks (!) rolled down West End Avenue, the long edge of the campus. Vanderbilt at the time was a hotbed of complacency, and it may still be. Black students numbered in the few dozens. What did they expect, an explosive race riot?Enough about me. Get this book right now. Anyone who truly loves this genre, and has some feelings about racial conflicts in this country, will be so engrossed in the book that he or she might miss a few meals.

I grew up in the south in the 60s and in my opinion this book captures the feel of this time in our country's history with straight forward grit and grace. The characters come alive under Mr. Cook's pen. The story is compelling throughout. The main character Ben is a complex and caring man who is trying to find out the circumstances surrounding the death of a young black girl found in the neighborhood of Bearmatch. This book reflects the tensions back then and accurately illustrates the horrors so many people in the African American community suffered at the hands of some very mean and sadistic police officers. The only small complaint I have is that I found the narration to be a bit confusing at times. I was too often trying to figure out who was speaking; this narrator although very good in many ways, did not differentiate the characters very well. Overall an excellent and important read/listen!

While built on the bones of a crime novel--and a fine one, Thomas Cook's masterful work is much, much more. He captures the ethos of the nastiest crevices of racism in the deep South during the height of the Civil Rights movement, as well as the heroism of those who stood up against it.

As I listened to this wonderfully narrated piece (thank you, Ray Chase), the surreal horror of the confrontations between Freedom Marchers and police in the 60's all came crashing back to me. (Note: I have lived in the South pretty much my whole life.) The rabid, self-righteous racism and casual brutality depicted in such shocking detail did exist and is yet to be totally eradicated (please support the efforts of the SPLC). Do not think for a minute that Cook exaggerates, although he takes pains to show us, too, that evil is not race specific.

On the other hand, nobility, honor, and courage are not race-specific, either, and Cook shows us that, as well. The uneasy steps toward trust always require courage, and a few are taken as the story unfolds. Sometimes those steps are simply to move out of the way, to not impede the progress of a bolder person, set on doing the right thing.

This crime novel is as raw and gripping as any I have read. The characters are finely drawn, the prose is faultless, the plotting is seamless, and the ethos is all too real. It's a stretch to use the word "enjoy" in the context of this work, but you will be riveted by the story, the setting, the characters, and the mystery. What sets Streets of Fire head and shoulders above other books in its genre is that, ultimately, you will also be moved.

A tense-filled mystery wrapped in an intense snapshot of American history.

Thomas Cook wrote a winner. Ray Chase did a good job with the narration, but a couple of the voices were over the top. Just don't plan to listen to it at work or with earbuds. You need to play it into a large open room.